No one really knows what a job is like until they do it themselves. Whether you’re a firefighter, a waiter or a doctor, people are pretty oblivious to what you actually do all day unless they’ve performed the same tasks.
So, in order to clear up any confusion, AskReddit users revealed what common misconceptions people have about their occupations.
1. Hot stuff
“Welding. People often think you need to protect only the eyes. And then get 2nd degree burns on their arms/neck when they realize the light from arc welding is like standing in front of a tanning bed on steroids.”
2. Don’t ask me
“Programmers (generally) can’t fix computers.
Or software they did not write.
Sometimes not even the software they wrote.”
3. Doctor’s orders
“Just because you had some side effects from a medication does not mean you are allergic to it.
Also, please don’t f-cking eat or drink before surgery. I will cancel your surgery. It’s for your own safety, so don’t lie about it.”
4. More from the doc
“This. People act like “nothing to eat or drink” is ambiguous, or we aren’t serious.
These are the kinds of things we see listed as “allergies” & the reason:
Bananas – “make potassium go up”
Morphine – “makes me sleepy”
Benadryl – “makes me sleepy”
Epinephrine – “makes heart beat fast”
Ambien – “makes me forget things”
And finally, one “allergy” that made me question the sanity of both the patient and the person who dared put it on the chart. Apparently this patient was allergic to about 70% of himself or herself: Sterile water.”
5. Words of wisdom from a librarian
“A shocking amount of people seem to think that because I work in a library, I sit around and read all day. I do not. I wish that was what I was getting paid to do but nah.
Got a lot of ” So what do you do then”, so I’m copying a reply I made earlier, with a few more things I thought of along the way:
It’s a smaller library so I do a little of everything. I put materials away, I check materials in and out, I pursue our overdue fines, I help our patrons with things they may need or I make copies for them, I run our Facebook, I update our website, I write a monthly newsletter and an article for the weekly paper, and there is a lot of clerical work, billing, deposits, filing, supply ordering, etc. I create advertisments for our programs. I process and catalog new materials and weed old ones. I shush 12 year olds who confuse the place for a computer arcade. It’s possible to have a slow day where I probably could pull out a book and read but it’s not very professional looking so I don’t. Oh and I take the occasional reddit break. 😉
I do also want to say that I work in a library but I am not an accredited librarian. I am actually “library support staff” so my list is probably short in comparison to the director of library services in my building, who does have her library science degree.”
6. Can’t do it
“I can’t “Enhance” your tiny f-cking low res jpeg into a beautiful 8×10 print.
Retoucher.”
7. The movies ruined it
“Calls are traced all the time to diagnose problems and are rarely done in real time. Spy movies made it seem like something only done to find a criminal, and they always have to be on the phone with you.
How else would you find out how and why a call failed?”
8. Straight from a lawyer’s mouth
“No you can’t just lie to the court. No I won’t lie for you.
Also, while I practice on the civil side…
No you can’t just “press charges”. The District Attorney’s office gets to decide if someone gets brought up on criminal charges, not you. Whether you like it or not. This works both ways – a lot of people aren’t very happy when their husband gets brought up on assault for beating the shit out of them.”
9. It’s not mystical
“People also seem to think that the law works on mystical incantations, and if you just string together the right sequence of words you can find the technicality that tricks everyone into giving you the unjust result you want. Yes, you are being detained because you were driving with tags that expired two years ago. No, that’s not unconstitutional.”
10. Not gonna happen overnight
“That it takes more than a day to cut, tape, sand, and finish an order of 15+ cabinets.”
11. Time to vent
“Woo, buddy, here’s my chance to vent. I am a climate scientist.
Uncertainty does not mean we don’t know what we’re talking about, or that we’re guessing. Any scientific estimate of any kind has an uncertainty. You’re just usually not told about it. We’re pretty transparent about our math, so you get to see the range of estimates. That doesn’t mean we don’t know the mechanism behind it, it just means that there are variables involved that can’t be predicted precisely.
We KNOW the sun goes through cycles. I promise that we’ve already considered whatever show stopping thing you found on the internet.
When we say “climate change” in this current context, we mean the human-caused part. You aren’t providing new information by saying that “the climate always changes.” We know that.We know that it’s the carbon causing the temperature rise (and not the other way around) because we know exactly where the carbon came from. It’s not a coincidence that the CO2 concentration started rising at the same time we figured out combustion.
Some data sucks. That fact does not invalidate science.”
12. Timing
“I’ve seen the biggest disconnect when it comes to timing. The time tables the general public thinks the judicial system works in vs. how ling everything actually takes is huge.”
13. Teaching
“No, I’m not bullying your child. He just needs to learn that they are rules in a society and that the world doesn’t revolve around his arse, which you seem to have omitted.”
14. Pay attention
“Electricity will kill you.
A bad connection can burn down your house.
The YouTube video showing how easy it is to hook up your new hot tub does not understand your overloaded circuits.”
15. A hard business
“Getting a good photo doesn’t mean you’re necessarily able to be a professional photographer. Most people who enter the profession swiftly exit it again because of this. And those who stick around likely still learned it the hard way.”
So the next time you think you can figure something out that an expert, like those above, has built their career around, maybe try not doing that and call an expert instead. K?
